For hundreds of years, the Athabascan folks of Alaska relied on wooden bison for survival. That’s till the species, deemed by the Nationwide Park Service as the most important terrestrial animal in North America, disappeared within the early 1900s. 

So when a small herd of wooden bison was found in a distant part of northern Canada in 1957, a reintroduction program was born to guard the animals from extinction. 

“It is simply actually cool to be within the presence of a bison,” Sarah Howard, government director of the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Middle, informed CBS Information correspondent Jeff Glor. 

In 2003, the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Middle partnered with the Alaska Division of Fish and Sport to create a sanctuary the place wooden bison might efficiently breed in captivity. 

By 2015, the primary herd of 130 bison have been transported by aircraft to Shageluk, Alaska, and efficiently launched into the wild. A 12 months later, new calves have been born. 

Biologist Darren Bruning, with the Alaska Division of Fish and Sport, mentioned transporting the two,000-pound animals takes “quite a lot of persistence,” however says their reintroduction into America is “a grand alternative for restoration of a lacking piece of our unbelievable panorama.”

“I actually cannot consider I get to be a part of this,” Bruning informed Glor. “It is a dream come true for me.”

However the conservation mission has additionally had its difficulties. 

In 2018, the division reported important herd losses. The wooden bison inhabitants that 12 months decreased from an estimated 140 to 91. Biologist Tom Seaton attributed the decline to a “late winter stress occasion” that “took a toll on the herd.”

“Wooden bison are nonetheless studying their vary,” he wrote on the time. “If luck is with them and the climate is of their favor, they may sometime prosper to a bigger inhabitants and thereby be rather more succesful to face up to catastrophic snow occasions. 

Regardless of the cruel winters, conservationists are nonetheless dedicated to reviving the inhabitants. 

As of the summer season of 2021, an all-time excessive of 26 calves have been reported with the herd, rising by greater than 10% since 2020. And up to now in 2022, 5 calves have been born. 

“Having a bison again on the market simply creates a more healthy setting,” Howard informed Glor. “It creates a more healthy ecosystem from animals the scale of bison all the best way right down to the voles and the mice.”